LAHORE: The Pakistan Solar Association conducted a consultative online webinar where all the registered vendors in Pakistan for Net Metering were invited to participate and give their feedback on the recently imposed increase in Net Metering License Processing fee by Nepra.

Nepra has issued a notification on 3rd Nov 2020 via SRO 1175 whereby the fees of processing Net Metering Application were increased for all slabs.

For the residential customers with systems up to 20KW, the new fees will reach up to Rs 20,000 per application compared to free of cost as per Net Metering Regulations 2015.

For small projects for commercial/industrial customers of a project size of 100 kW, the new fee will be around Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 compared to the previous cost of Rs 1,000 per application.

For larger projects of size up to 1MW, the fee could reach up to Rs one million, compared to the previously notified fee of Rs 5,000; an increase of about 200 times.

Speaking on the occasion, Chairman of PSA, Muhammad Farhan of Power Highway said, “The Pakistan Solar Industry is actively playing a role in the realization of the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan that by 2030, 60 percent of all energy produced in the country will be clean and through renewable resources. Such a drastic increase in fee goes directly against this vision and will instead discourage consumers from investing in solar energy. We want to work with Nepra to understand the justification behind this increase and how we can encourage the adoption of solar and other clean energy sources.”

Faheem Ashraf of Zeus Energy, representing the PSA Standing Committee on Net Metering, chaired the session and shared with the industry participants that multiple letters have been sent to Nepra by PSA to provide feedback on the notification.—PR

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020